


all we know

by vices_and_virtues



Series: we've fallen apart, still we hold together [1]
Category: IT (2017), Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Family, Gen, Richie Tozier and Mike Wheeler Are Twins, sibling relationships, this is mostly about them and their family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-03-23 12:47:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13788072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vices_and_virtues/pseuds/vices_and_virtues
Summary: Mike Wheeler and his twin brother, Richie, haven't been close in years. They have different friends, take different classes, and rarely spend time together even when they're both at home. They're still best friends, though, even if they don't always like the other all that much. Of course they are.But when Will Byers vanishes on a Sunday night in early November on his way home from the Wheeler house, Mike finds himself keeping the biggest secret of his life from the one person who knows him better than anyone. And he doesn't know how much longer he can keep this up.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this follows the basic premise of season 1 of Stranger Things, with the added caveat of Mike having yet another person to keep this whole mess from. It'll mostly focus on the relationship between Mike and Richie, and their relationships with the rest of the family. More time at home, if you will.
> 
> Once this one is all published, I'll post the second part, which will take place over the summer with IT.

On a Sunday night in early November, Mike Wheeler stands in his garage and watches his three best friends start to head home. Lucas and Dustin leave right away with calls of, “Later!” and “Just saying!” but Will only rolls forward a few inches before he stops, and looks over his shoulder at Mike.

“I forgot to tell you,” he says abruptly. “It was a seven.”

“What?”

“The roll, it was a seven.” Will’s voice is solemn. “The Demogorgon. It got me.”

He has this particular look on his face, like he wants to say something more but can’t quite figure out the way to word it. Mike waits patiently, and for a moment they’re only looking at one another, surrounded by the perfect stillness of night.

A choir of bike bells shatter the illusion, though, and Mike and Will both look up to see four bright lights turn into the long Wheeler driveway, the leading cutting right through Dustin and Lucas to pull into the garage ahead of the rest.

“Hey,” Mike’s twin brother says breathlessly, leaping off his bike and letting it clatter to the ground. To his friends, he adds, “Wait here,” before rushing up the steps and slamming into the house.

“Nice to see you too, Richie,” Will says after a moment, before turning back to Mike. “What's up with him?”

“Who cares.” Mike shrugs it off, tries to get back to the more important matter. “Anyway, what were you saying?”

“Oh.” Will’s eyes cut briefly over to Richie’s friends huddled by the station wagon, all trying to talk over one another. “Never mind, it wasn’t important.” He smiles as he pushes off on his bike. “Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye!”

“Bye,” Mike calls after him, but Will’s already gone, pedalling hard to catch up with Dustin and Lucas, the lights on their bicycles twinkling several houses down. He waits until they’ve all disappeared before turning away, and as he does so, the garage light above his head flickers. Mike throws one last look at Richie’s chattering friends—Eddie’s voice is rising, and Stan and Bill are both laughing at him—before he goes inside.

When Mike steps into the kitchen, it’s to Richie’s frantic yammering in an appeal to their mother, who hardly looks impressed.

“—and Eddie especially has been dying to see it, but he doesn’t have MTV and neither does Stan, which is why we had to come here. And Bill’s house right now is… you know.”

Mike doesn’t think Richie had done it on purpose, but even so, he sees the allusion to the missing Georgie Denbrough soften their mother, if only slightly.

“Hey,” he says loudly, because that’s the face she gets when she’s about to give in. He doesn’t know exactly what it is his brother wants, but he can guess and he doesn’t like it. “What’s going on?”

“Michael Jackson has a new, top-secret-until-now music video premiering tonight on MTV and it’s gonna start in literally five minutes,” Richie explains rapidly, never taking his eyes off their mother. “And I’m asking Mom if maybe my friends could stay to watch it.”

“Well, they can’t,” Mike says instantly. “It’s almost eight-thirty and we have school tomorrow.”

Richie turns to him and his expression shifts, just barely. “Sorry,” he says, his voice now sticky-sweet. “I didn’t realize _you_ were my mother. Karen Wheeler, you’re looking younger every day!”

“Richard, stop.” Their mother snaps the lid onto a green Tupperware and pushes it into the fridge. “It’s past curfew, you know the rule.”

“But Mom, they’re already here.” Richie snaps back into action, clasping his hands together. “We already called Mrs. K from Stan’s house and she gave her blessing as long as Bill promised to bike with Eddie the whole way to his house, which he always does anyway. All our bases are covered! Please, please, _please_ , Mom, it’ll only be a few minutes and then I’ll make everyone go right home, I promise.” Before she can say anything, he whirls toward the living room, bracing his hands against the doorframe. “Dad, don’t you think that because this is a huge fu—I mean, uh… totally _earth-shattering_ deal, that we can extend curfew for just a teeny bit longer? For such a monumental occasion?”

“I don’t see why not.” Ted Wheeler doesn’t even really look in their direction, just gives the bunny ears on the TV one final adjustment. “Gotcha.”

“Ted,” Karen says before Richie can start celebrating and Mike can begin his meltdown. “It’s a school night. We just sent Mike’s friends home.”

“Yeah!” Mike says, crossing his eyes at his brother. Richie covertly flips him off.

“He said they wouldn’t be long,” Ted answers. “I don’t see the harm, Karen.”

Their mom presses her lips together, looking annoyed. Starting to put away the unused containers, she finally says, “Fine, Richie, you may—”

“Thank you!” Richie cries, at the same time Mike crows, “That isn’t fair!”

“—but you have to keep the volume down, and no getting excited,” she warns. “I just put Holly to bed and I don’t need you waking her. Understand?”

Richie nods and darts back to the garage to get his friends. Mike whirls on their mother. “What happened to _it’s a school night?"_  he demands. “MTV shows every music video a million times, that’s literally the whole channel! They can watch it tomorrow!”

“Mike, it’s just a music video.” She sounds impatient, absently waving off the chorus of _Thank-you, Mrs. Wheeler!_ as Richie’s friends file into the house. “They’ll be gone in five minutes.” She doesn’t lecture him about his tone like she ordinarily would, though, so maybe she does realize this is totally unfair.

Still, just in case she doesn't, Mike turns on his heel and storms out of the kitchen without another word.

Fifteen minutes later, while he's sitting on his bed and carefully filling in the meager notes he’d taken during the campaign in the Party's record book, Richie throws open the door to their room. Before Mike can react, his brother flings himself down onto the bed, making his pencil skitter across the page and leaving an ugly dark mark across his notes.

 _“Richie!”_ Mike kicks at him.

“Man, you really missed it!” Richie hardly registers the foot in his side and immediately starts blathering on and on about the music video. Mike tries to tune him out. _So if the Demogorgon got Will, that might make the next campaign a little trickier to plan for… maybe if I—_

“Michael!” Richie suddenly yanks on his ankle. “Are you even listening to me?”

“What do you think, Dick?”

“Oooh, real original, really got me there.” Richie flops back in peals of exaggerated laughter and doesn’t shut up until Nancy bangs on the wall. Then he sits up, looking affronted. “Wow, what the fuck, Nance? Can’t a guy laugh enjoy a laugh in his own room?”

“She’s right,” Mike says without looking up. “You’re going to wake up Holly.”

“What? The Russians could drop a bomb on our heads right now and Holly would still sleep through it. I think Mom must let her drink from her glass at dinner when the rest of us aren’t looking.” Richie rolls over onto his stomach. “Oh shit, speaking of bombs, Eddie really thought we were gonna get blasted on our way down here from Stan’s. He’s the only person I know more paranoid than Dad.”

“Hm.”

“Yeah, all the streetlights were flickering and shit, like every time we passed under one. Then Eddie started screaming about how his hair was standing on end and that’s how you know the air’s charged and we were gonna be like, instantly incinerated.”

Mike finally looks up to see Richie watching him, expectant. “Weird,” he says eventually. “The garage light was being weird too. And the TV was bugging out right before you guys got here.”

“Well, fuck.” Richie doesn’t look particularly concerned, though. “Probably the grid system acting up. You’d think the Department of Energy would stay on top of that though, wouldn’t you.”

“It’s military, Richie. Weapons. I don’t think they care about our grid system.”

Richie hums idly, stretching. “Well, Micycle Bicycle,” he says, rolling back over onto his back. “You sound sure, but you can never really know, can you?”

Mike taps the end of his pencil against the page, the eraser bouncing up and down right on Will’s name. “That’s true, I guess.”

The sound of knuckles against wood makes them both look up to see their mom standing in the doorway. “Hey, guys, it’s almost time for bed. Richie—" She points. "—you need to get in the shower.”

Richie, always the show-off, somersaults off the bed and comes out of the roll standing ramrod straight. “Yes, ma’am,” he says with a salute. “Any other requests?”

“Don't pull anything like tonight again,” she warns. “If you can call Mrs. Kaspbrak, you can call me. I don't care what Dad thinks, it's not fair to your brother.”

“Got it, captain.” Richie gives their mother a wide smile and she smiles back.

“Dad’ll be up soon to call lights out,” she says. “Goodnight, love you.”

“Love you,” they chorus. Their mom gives them one last smile before moving on. The the next room, Mike hears her tell Nancy that she'll see Barb tomorrow, and to start finishing up her phone call.

Richie immediately flops back onto the bed. “Mom said to shower,” Mike reminds him.

“I'm going to. Have you brushed your teeth yet?”

“I'm going to.” Richie makes a face at him and Mike pulls one right back. “You know, you're lucky you remind Dad of himself when he was our age.”

“Yeah, only I'm cooler and funnier and probably way more handsome.”

“Shut up, I'm not kidding. He was all for listening to Mom when it was _my_ friends that had to go. Then you waltz in like you own the place and suddenly twenty more minutes is no problem.”

Richie shrugs. “Gotta play the game if you're gonna win anything,” he says flippantly, and Mike scoffs. “What? You're not actually mad, are you? Mom said I can't do it again anyway.”

“So you admit you knew it would work?”

Richie shrugs again, then grins. “Hey, you said it yourself. For me, it always does.” He stands and stretches before Mike can say anything else. “Well, time to shower. I probably smell like..." He lifts his sleeve to his nose and takes a cartoonish whiff. "...tree bark and moss.”

“Tree bark and—what the _hell_ were you guys doing all day?”

“Hm. Well, I can tell you that it involved trees and... let's say some vigilante justice.” Richie salutes again before disappearing from the doorway. A minute later, he hears the shower start.

Mike leans back against the headboard and looks again at his notes. Maybe he can finish working out the significance of the all rolls and gambles before he has to go to bed. Something about them seems important.

* * *

 

Like most Monday mornings in their house, things are a little hectic.

First, Nancy and Richie nearly get into a fistfight in the bathroom when Richie just narrowly misses spewing toothpaste all over her new blouse, a situation that's only diffused by Holly (everyone's reigning favorite sibling) wandering in and asking if she can use the potty.

Then Mike can’t find his science book and pretty much tears their bedroom apart looking for it. He finds it in Richie’s backpack and Richie swears up and down that he’d really thought it was his because it was downstairs on the kitchen table where he usually did his homework, and comes to the conclusion that his textbook must still be at Bill’s house, where he’d spent most of Friday evening. He asks Nancy if he can use her phone line to call the Denbroughs, she says no, and that turns into the third almost-fight of the morning.

“Nancy’s gonna kill you if she finds out,” Mike says from their sister’s doorway once she’s gone downstairs. Richie, seated carefully on the edge of her bed to avoid wrinkling the quilt, waves him off and continues dialing Bill’s number. “Why can’t you just use the extension in Mom and Dad’s room?”

“Because that’s the main line and what if Mom decides to give one of her friends a morning call and hears that I lost my textbook again? She’ll yell at me for being careless and—Oh, good morning, Big Bill! Sleep well? Mike, don’t leave, I need you as lookout!”

Richie thankfully doesn’t stay on the line too long, and soon after he confirms that Bill does indeed have two identical textbooks at his house, they’re trampling down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Nancy’s just sitting down at the table with a plate of scrambled eggs and toast. “By the way, Mom, Barb’s got an early dentist appointment, so I need you to drive me to school.”

Their mom, cutting toast into tiny pieces for Holly, gives her an exasperated look. "And you couldn't have mentioned that earlier?"

Nancy just raises her eyebrows innocently. "I thought I had!"

"Hm. Just be ready to leave when I am," she says, plunking the syrup down in front of Mike's place and the ketchup in front of Richie's. Right as she's lifting Holly to go in the high chair, the phone rings. “Oh, let me get that.”

Richie, who'd been sniffing at their dad's coffee mug like he's deliberating taking a swig, looks up and shoots Mike a smug look as if to say, _See, told you it could happen._ Mike shrugs and reaches for the syrup.

On his other side, Nancy’s looking at him with disdain. “That’s disgusting.”

“Can’t be grosser than Richie.” While Nancy looks past him to transfer her sneer to their brother as he methodically tears his toast into strips and uses it to sop up the mess of egg and ketchup on his plate with his hands, Mike pours some syrup onto her eggs too. She shrieks.

“What the hell, Mike!”

“Language,” their father mumbles at the same time their mom snaps, “Quiet!”

“Dad, seriously?” Nancy demands. “He ruined my breakfast!”

“Come on, Nancy, it’s delicious.” Mike takes a big bite of his eggs and grins at her, then dodges the punch she throws at his shoulder. He overcorrects and ends up knocking Richie’s elbow in the process, making him drop the bite that had been headed toward his open mouth.

“Fuck.”

_“Language.”_

“You are both _so_ obnoxious,” Nancy snaps, pushing her chair back and taking her plate to the sink. She makes a big show of scraping the eggs into the garbage disposal before she leaves the kitchen in a huff.

Richie gazes after her, shaking his head. “You know, you really have to wonder what she did in a past life to deserve us.”

“What did you two say to her?” Mike hadn’t even realized his mom had hung up the phone, but there she is settling Holly into her high chair and taking her own seat. He exchanges a look with Richie.

“Nothing, really.” Richie answers for them both. “You know Nancy, Mom.”

“Uh-huh.” She’s obviously not buying it, but doesn’t press further. “Mike, that was Joyce Byers on the phone. Will _did_ go home last night, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, right when Richie got here.” Mike puts down his fork. “Why, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, don’t worry.” She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Joyce thinks he left for school early, that’s all.”

Richie grimaces. “Gross.”

“Richard.”

“Sorry, sorry. School’s great, love it.” He pops the last piece of toast and eggs into his mouth, downs the rest of his orange juice, and pushes back his chair. “I’m on my way there now, actually. _Adios,_ _madre, padre—”_ He pauses, looks from Holly to Mike, then drops the Groucho Marx voice. “And you two, I guess. Stan’s waiting.”

“Richie, don’t forget your jacket,” Karen calls after him, but the only response she gets is the shut of the garage door. She looks at Mike. “Make sure he has his jacket, will you?”

“I’m not his babysitter,” Mike complains. He shoves his chair back too. “You said Will was already at school, right?”

“I’m sure he is, honey.”

* * *

 

Will’s not at school.

After the police let them go, Mike walks into the cafeteria feeling incredibly disoriented. Of course it’s not the first time a party member has been missing from school for whatever reason, but this time feels different. This time feels deeply _wrong._

Dustin and Lucas are in the hot lunch line. Mike’s supposed to be claiming a table for them to sit at, but he takes a moment to just stand and survey the room. Maybe everyone’s just confused. Maybe Will had come to school early, and then maybe he just decided to skip all the morning classes just because. Maybe he’s over in their favorite spot right now, seated at a long table at the end closest to the big window that overlooks the courtyard and just waiting for them to show up.

He’s not, of course. And their usual spot’s been taken over by a group of sixth grade girls, so on top of that they’ll have to fight for somewhere else to sit.

Mike’s still standing in the doorway like an idiot when Richie, at _his_ usual table, talking and laughing and probably making a mess of his hot lunch with his friends, suddenly swivels in his direction like a dowsing rod. They lock eyes from opposite ends of the room and it's like he just _knows,_ because in an instant Richie’s up and quickly walking towards him.

“Hey,” he says, putting a hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong? You guys can come sit with us if you want. We can make room.”

Mike just looks at him for a moment. “Your jacket’s in my locker,” he says eventually. “You better wear it home or Mom’s gonna have a fit.”

Richie opens his mouth, closes it, then frowns. “Fine, I will, whatever,” he says. “Where’s Will? What happened?”

“Will…” Mike swallows, looking away from his brother's concerned, open face. “He’s really missing.”

* * *

 

“Mike,” Richie says from behind him, following him down to the basement. “Mike, come on. Of course I care about Will.”

“Then you should have backed me up,” Mike snaps. “Jesus, Richie, close the door behind you!”

“Hey, that's blasphemy. Don’t let Dad hear you talking like that.”

Mike throws him a withering look over his shoulder, and Richie, to his credit, shuts the door without any more jokes.

“Look, just because I want Will to be found doesn’t mean I think we’re the ones who should do the finding.” Richie skips down the rest of the steps and throws himself onto the couch. Mike takes a seat at the campaign table. “Mike, listen, the chief of police called a search party. Stan told me his dad’s gonna be there and so's a bunch of other people, I bet. They’re doing everything they can. Maybe Mom’s right and we should just stay put for now.”

“They all that for Georgie and look how that’s turned out.”

Richie’s whole face twitches. “That’s not fair, Mike.”

“I’m just saying. Maybe we know something they don’t.”

“What, like made-up streets from your fantasy books? Come on. Get real.”

Mike glares at him. “If you’re not going to help,” he says stiffly, “then _go away._ I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“Of course I want to help, but I don’t think—”

“Just leave me alone.”

Richie frowns, then stands. “Fine,” he says, throwing his hands up and stalking towards the stairs. “Come get me when you’re ready to actually brainstorm.”

Mike waits until he hears the basement door open and shut before reaching for his SuperCom. “Lucas? Lucas, do you copy?”

A moment of dead air, then, “Yeah, I copy.”

Mike studies the campaign board as they talk, and when Lucas says, “Meet me in ten. Over and out,” he feels… lighter, somehow. So what if Richie just wants to play it safe? They don't need him anyway.

They’re going to find Will.

* * *

 

They don’t find Will.

Instead, as Lucas puts it, they now have on their hands “another problem entirely.”

Mike doesn’t think El’s a problem, though. She’s just a scared kid; the way she says to him, “Night, Mike,” once he has her settled is enough to make him sure of that. Anyway, all there is to do is keep her safe for the night, and in the morning he can tell his mom and _she_ can take care of the rest.

He hurries up both flights upstairs and heads straight into the bathroom, because he doesn’t need Richie demanding to know why the hell his hair is wet and why he reeks of rain. He showers quickly, stuffs his wet clothes into the hamper, and slips into his room.

Richie’s sitting up in his bed, listening to his Walkman and punching buttons on the GameBoy they’re supposed to share, but he pulls off the headphones and sets the game aside when Mike enters.

“It’s way past curfew, young man,” his brother says, crossing his arms. “Where’d you go?”

Mike goes to their shared dresser and yanks open one of his three drawers. “Nowhere,” he mumbles, pulling out some pajamas.

“Cut the shit,” Richie says simply. “I know you left. I, being the good brother that I am, went back down to the basement to maybe work something out. But alas. You weren’t there, and when I checked the garage, your bike was gone.”

Mike’s toes curl as he pulls a t-shirt over his head. “You didn’t tell Mom, did you?”

“Of course not,” Richie snaps. “I covered for you, even though you couldn’t be assed to give me a heads-up. And you came real fucking close to getting caught.”

 _Well,_  Mike kind of wants to say, _I never said I needed your help to do anything._  But he stays silent.

Richie just glares at him for a moment longer before letting out a long, exasperated sigh. “Fine,” he says finally. “Did you at least find anything?”

Mike just looks at his brother for a moment while he thinks. “Not Will,” he settles on, watching his face carefully for a reaction. Curiosity, maybe, or even suspicion.

Richie doesn’t react at all like that. Instead, the vague irritation gives way to something resembling sadness. “You gotta let the cops do their job, dude,” he says, his usually brash voice almost gentle. “At least wait until they’ve failed before you spring into action.”

“Well,” Mike says after a moment. “Maybe they missed something big.”

Richie just shrugs, and Mike’s actually kind of shocked. His brother’s usually the nosiest person on the planet with an ever active bullshit detector, and yet here he is just… yielding? Maybe he should hint harder.

“Look,” Richie says, leaning over the rail to better look down at him. “If you’re going to keep looking, just promise me that if you find anything, you won’t try to sit on it like a hero, okay? You’ll take it straight to the cops. Okay?”

“But Richie—”

“I mean it, Mike. This is their job. They know what they’re doing.”

Richie’s giving him an unusually serious look, and that tells Mike all he needs to know. “Fine,” he amends. His brother finally smiles, but it’s halfhearted.

“Cool,” he says, and slips his glasses off his face, handing them to Mike. “Goodnight.”

Mike places them on the nightstand and crawls into bed. “Goodnight.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took so long to get out! I'm a student that only really has time to write between classes and on weekends, and things have just been piling up on me. Hopefully this won't happen again!
> 
> The second half of this chapter became unexpectedly long, so I split it in two, which is why the total chapter count went up.

When Mike comes up from the basement after talking to El the next morning, he makes a split second decision.

Richie’s already halfway out the door, and even though they usually left a few minutes apart, Mike scoots right after him, grabbing both of their jackets from the coat rack on his way out. Richie doesn’t even notice him until he’s picking up his bike from where he’d dropped it the evening before, when Mike tosses his jacket over his head.

“Fuck!” Richie says, loudly enough that there’s no way their parents didn’t hear. His bike clatters back to the ground and he spins around. “Mike, what the hell!”

“Sorry!” Mike hurredly picks up his brother’s bike for him before he goes to his own, kicking up the stand so he can wheel it out of the garage. “Come on!”

Richie gives him a weird look, but follows anyway. “What, you gonna ride with me and Stan today?”

“No, just—” Mike glances over his shoulder, though their mom hasn’t seen them off since they started the second grade. “I, uh, don’t think I’m going to school today.”

“What?” Richie, who’d been waving at Barb’s car as it pulls away from the curb (Barbara waves back, Nancy does not), drops his hand and looks at him with interest. “How come?”

“Or I’ll be a little late,” Mike quickly amends. All the way down at the end of the street, he can see the idling figure of Stanley Uris at the edge of his driveway, which means Lucas will be coming out of his house next door at any minute. He needs to get rid of Richie faster. “I just think I might be coming down with something. My head hurts, and my throat feels all scratchy.” He forces a cough.

“That’s what you get for running around  in the rain all night.” There’s no bite to the words, though—Richie just reaches out to press the back of his hand against Mike’s forehead. “You seemed fine at breakfast.”

“Yeah, well.” Mike knocks his hand away. “Now I’m not.”

The amusement that had been dancing behind Richie’s eyes disappears at his sharpness, replaced by a frown. Mike knows he has to play this carefully. He’s not worried about whether or not Richie will cover for him—he knows he will—but he needs to make sure his brother’s interest in his sudden foray into truancy is kept to an absolute minimum, if what El said about the bad men was true.

(A bullet between his brother’s eyes, those coke-bottle lenses shattered. If that happened, it would be his fault.)

“Hey.” Richie lightly pinches his arm, and Mike realizes he’d zoned out. “I’m not Mom, you don’t have to think so hard for an excuse. You can’t fool me anyway. Look, I get it.”

“You do?”

“Kinda, yeah. Bill...” Richie shrugs, adjusts his glasses. “It’s weird, huh? Without him.”

“...yeah.” For the first time, Mike wonders how he must be feeling about this. In less than a month, his best friend’s brother and his brother’s best friend have vanished into thin air without a trace. How weird must it be to be only a single degree removed from two of the biggest recent tragedies in their sleepy little town? “It is.”

“One day off never hurt anybody.” Richie suddenly reaches out to clap Mike on the back, just a little too hard. “Enjoy it for me, alright? Don't worry, I'll cover for you. How does throwing up so hard it actually starts coming out of your eyes sound?” He waves his hand in Mike's face as if to mime it, and Mike manages a laugh.

Richie smiles crookedly and finally pushes off on his bike. Mike watches him go, coasting out of the cul-de-sac and down the road, only slightly slowing when he passes the Uris house near the end of the street so that Stan can join him. Then he’s out of sight.

Half an hour later, after their mother’s left the house with Holly on her daily errand run, Mike’s watches El’s fingers falter over Richie’s broad smile in his school picture, then run along the bridge of his glasses. She glances back at Mike’s picture, posed on the other side of Nancy’s, then looks over her shoulder with a frown. “That isn’t you,” she says in her soft, halting voice.

“Nah, that’s my brother, Richie,” Mike says, stepping closer and pointing at the family portrait they’d had taken at the JCPenney in the strip mall a few months ago. “We’re identical twins.”

El’s frown deepens. “Identical… twins?”

“Yeah. It means…” Mike pauses, searching for the right words. He has a feeling she’s not looking for the proper scientific explanation. “When you’re a twin, people kind of look at you like one person instead of two. They’re someone you have to share everything with.”

El seems to be turning this new information over in her head, carefully considering it. “Share?” she says finally.

“Yeah, it’s like nothing is really just yours,” Mike explains. “Me and Richie have shared everything since we were born. Half of our clothes are still the same. We even share our middle name, Tozier, ‘cause my mom didn’t think it would be right to give it to only one of us. But only Richie really uses it.” He notices her eyes are starting to cloud over and wonders if he’s talking about himself too much. “Uh, do you have any brothers or sisters?”

El half-turns away from him and doesn’t answer. For a second, Mike’s sure he’d hit a nerve and is ready to apologize, before he realizes her focus has just shifted over to the recliner. “Oh, that’s our La-Z-Boy. Richie’s friends are kind of obsessed. Hey, do you want to try it?”

* * *

 

Hours later, Lucas sounds scary calm when he finally speaks. “Are you out of your mind?”

Mike had mostly expected that reaction. “Just listen—”

“You are _out_ of your mind!”

“She knows about Will!” Mike nearly shouts, and that makes Lucas shut up, at least long enough for Mike to explain everything; how El had recognized him in the picture, and how weird it is that she’d turned up in the very place he’d disappeared.

“Then why won’t she tell us?” Lucas demands, and before Mike can think of an answer Lucas is storming across the room to grab El by the shoulders. “Do you know where Will is?”

“Stop it, you’re scaring her!”

“She should be scared!” Lucas shouts. _“I’m_ scared! Kids are going missing, Mike! What if one of us is next?”

“Be _quiet!”_ Lucas listens to that, at least, even as his mouth dips into a deep, worried frown. Mike takes a deep breath, and with that, an idea pops into his head. Maybe El knew more than he’d thought to ask?

Without another word, he turns and goes to his shelf, where a row of yearbooks is lined up; his parents had gotten him and Richie one to share ever since they started school. He picks one of the more recent ones, from his last year of elementary school, and flips straight to the kindergarten pages.

“Here,” he says, nudging Lucas and Dustin out of the way to sit down next to El. He points to the slightly grainy black and white photo of a gap-toothed little boy with a swoopy bowl cut and asks, “Have you seen him before?”

Dustin and Lucas exchange a look, and before he knows it the four of them are all squeezed together on the single bed, jostling one another to get comfortable. El flinches away slightly when Dustin gets too close, but he just smiles at her and she’s back to peering at the picture, just as carefully as she’d looked at Will’s.

“I…” she says eventually, and she looks up at Mike with an apology on her face. “I don’t know.”

Lucas leaps up. “See?” he crows. “I told you!”

“All she said was she doesn’t know!” Mike insists. “Maybe she just can’t remember, it’s been more than a month. Lucas, _wait.”_

“No!” Lucas snaps. “No, no, no. We’re going back to plan A. _We’re telling your mom.”_

When the door slams shut, Mike thinks at first that Lucas had just done it himself, maybe had a split second change of heart. But when he sees the look of surprise on his friend’s face, then watches him try to tug it open a second time only for it to slam shut again (even harder this time, hard enough for the figurines on the dresser to topple over) and the lock click neatly into place does he realize that something truly weird is going on.

Slowly, he turns to look at El. A trickle of blood is leaking from her nose.

“No,” she says simply.

For exactly three seconds, it’s completely silent.

Then Richie's voice is in the hallway, as brash and abrasive as ever.

“Why the _fuck_ are you slamming doors?” The doorknob starts jiggling violently. “And why is it locked? Mike!”

Mike grabs Lucas’s wrist. “You said he was staying after school!” he hisses.

“Well, that’s what it looked like!” Lucas pushes him away. “Do something!”

“Me?” Mike looks over his shoulder at El again. She looks right back at him, wary. Okay, sure, that whole display had been freaky, but maybe if he could just talk to her real quick—

“He’s _your_ brother!”

Right, obviously. “Fine, but go stand in front of her, don’t let Richie see. C’mon, hurry!”

“Mike!” Richie shakes the doorknob harder, his voice rising with impatience. “I can hear you whispering, what’s going on?”

“Nothing.” Mike pulls the door open just enough so that he can slip out, then pulls it firmly shut behind him. “What do you want?”

“What do I…” Richie, who’d been trying to catch a glimpse into their room, suddenly balks. “What do I want? It’s my room! I don’t have to _want_ anything!”

Mike can’t help himself. “Actually, it’s our room.”

“Okay, so _my_ room! You don’t get to have a fucking monopoly on everything, Mike! Just go to the basement like always, jeez.”

“Can’t you go watch a movie in the living room or something? Dad’s not home yet.”

“I don’t want to watch a movie.” Richie’s voice has a distinct whine to it. “I just wanna get my fucking Walkman. Is that too much to ask?”

“You can use mine. It’s in the basement.”

“But the tape I wanna listen to is in there, and you won’t know where to find it,” Richie insists, and tries to reach for the door. Mike moves to block his path.

“Dustin’s changing out of his gym clothes,” he blurts. “Can’t he have some privacy?”

There’s an indignant squawk from the other side of the door and Mike tries not to flinch. Richie frowns, his dark eyes narrowing behind his glasses like he’s trying to decide whether or not this situation ranks high enough on the bullshit meter to be worth putting up a fight.

It must not, because only another few seconds pass before Richie shrugs. “Fine, whatever,” he says. His voice his flippant, but his brow is furrowed in such a way that Mike can tell he’s seriously bothered and just trying not to show it. “Tell Mom I’m going to Eddie’s. And I’m taking your Walkman.”

“Don’t lose it!” Mike calls after him. Richie, already thumping down the stairs, doesn’t answer, not even with a cheerfully raised middle finger. Mike hopes he's not actually mad, because he really doesn't have time to deal with that right now. There are more important matters at hand.

* * *

 

Richie is beginning to get the distinct feeling that Mike is hiding something from him.

Sure, it wasn’t like they’d ever had a habit of telling each other everything (at least, not since they were eight), but they still _talked._ After all, they lived in the same house and shared a room and their lockers at school were side by side because they'd been assigned alphabetically. Even if Richie didn’t know everything that was going on in Mike’s world and Mike didn’t know everything that was going on in his, they still had their own private little neighborhood within those separate worlds, mostly full of shitty jokes and dumb complaints that only the other would really understand. Such was the joy of being a twin.

But now Mike’s pretty much just… stopped talking to him. No joking or whining or anything. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

Richie’s not bothered by it, exactly. Bill’s still pretty wrecked from Georgie’s disappearance after all, and even if he’s starting to get a little better, Richie honestly doesn’t know if his friend will ever completely recover short of a miracle. It’s only been two days since Will vanished, after all; he understands if his brother just wants space.

What concerns Richie is the furtiveness. There’d been the whole door-slamming, frantic-whispering, Mike-pretty-much-trying-to-throw-him-out fiasco yesterday, of course, and today at school Mike, Lucas, and Dustin had been pretty much inseparable, even more so than usual. At the end of the day, when Richie had rounded the corner to his locker, all three of them had been there, heads close together and whispering. Richie had announced his presence cheerfully and they instantly broke apart, trying to look nonchalant even as Mike blinked at him guiltily. They’d left school in a real hurry after that.

It’s all very much like they’re conspiring. But again, Richie tries not to be too bothered by it.

“Where were you?” his mom demands as soon as he walks into the kitchen later that evening. Richie heads straight for the fridge.

“Bill’s.”

“Where’s your brother?”

“Why would I know?” Richie pours himself a glass of apple juice then glances over his shoulder. “Holly Jolly, you want juice?”

Holly smiles at him from where she’s perched on the island and he smiles back. His mom passes him her sippy cup and says, “It’s going to be dark soon. Are you sure you don’t know where he is?”

“No, Mom, like I just said,” Richie says, slowly filling up his sister’s cup. “I _don’t._  I haven’t even said a word to him since this morning.”

“You _haven’t?”_ His mom sounds genuinely surprised. “Why not? Did he skip school again?”

“No, we just haven’t really been talking.” Richie, returning the juice to the fridge, fights the urge to roll his eyes. “He’s probably just out riding bikes with Dustin and Lucas.”

His mother’s lips flatten into a tense frown. “Has he talked at all again about looking for Will? Don’t lie to me, Richie.”

 _Not to me,_  Richie wants to say, _because I fucked it all up by refusing to go along with it and now he’s barely talking to me at all like he’s afraid if he opens his mouth he’ll spill all the beans._  He shrugs.

“Richie.”

“Karen." She frowns. "Oh, come on. Don’t you think if I knew they were looking for Will I’d be out there too?”

It’s shitty, because Richie _does_ know they’re looking and yet he’s _not_ out there, but whatever, because it works. His mother softens instantly, reaching out to run a hand over his hair.

“I know, sweetie,” she says, and the look she’s giving him kind of makes it hard to meet her eyes. “I’m just worried. It’s just, you know, with Georgie and Will and now Barb…”

“Barb? What happened to Barb?”

His mom smiles tightly. “Well, you shouldn’t worry about it. Her parents are going to be here in just a few minutes now, so I need you to watch Holly for a little while, okay? I’ll be just in the other room if you need me.”

Before he can agree, the doorbell rings. “Oh, that’s them,” she says, pulling her hand away from him. “Just in the other room, okay?” Then she’s hurrying away.

Richie runs a hand over his eyes, even though they’re dry. He turns to his little sister and offers up his biggest smile. “Well, Holly Molly,” he says brightly. “Looks like it’s just me and you.”

Usually, he and Holly had a great time together. Their favorite special game was “Drive-Thru,” typically played on nights when Richie finished his homework early and his mom wanted extra help keeping Holly out of the way while she was making dinner. Holly would sit up on the dining table with a baseball cap on her head and all her play food in a bucket beside her. He’d make slow loops around the making car noises before coming to a stop in front of her and giving his order, using a different voice every time.

It was a mutually beneficial endeavor, in his opinion. Richie got to practice his voices with a ready excuse in case someone said _Keep it down, Richard_ or _You’re such a pest!_ and Holly basically got to star in her own _Sesame Street_ segment.

Except right now Richie really does have to be quiet, because he can hear hushed voices floating in from the sitting room, and he knows it must be serious if his mom’s so tense and Nancy’s so scarce and Barb’s parents are here without her. Even Holly can tell something’s up, because it’s a lot harder to make her laugh than it usually is, not matter how much he quietly hams it up.

“But, ma’am, you are not listening to me,” Richie says some fifteen minutes in, using his best Hans Gruber impression; he hasn’t actually gotten the chance to see _Die Hard_ in its entirety yet, but he thinks he’s doing okay. After all, Holly’s holding back giggles at his increasing (but quiet!) intensity, and right now she’s the only audience that matters. “As I have told you a thousand times—”

Richie hears the front door open and pauses. He hears his mother’s voice say, “Michael?” then, “What’s wrong?” Then it’s just silence.

(Later, Richie would decide that that was the scariest part. Just the pure, dead silence that somehow told him everything he needed to know.)

Holly’s looking at him with wide eyes, all traces of laughter wiped clean off her face. He pulls her off the counter and drags her by the hand to the kitchen door so that he can peer into the hall.

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, gripping his little sister’s hand while he watches his mom and brother cling to one another right there in the middle of the hall. Distantly, he thinks that maybe Holly shouldn’t be seeing this.

It’s only when the hushed voices return that Richie manages to tear his eyes away and turn around, just in time to see Nancy hustling the Hollands out of the kitchen door.

“Nance?” he says once the door is shut behind them. “What’s going on?”

Nancy just blinks at him. “I thought you and Holly were upstairs,” she says faintly. She crosses the kitchen quickly and lifts Holly into her arms. “Here, come sit down.”

Richie doesn’t argue or whine or protest. He goes to the table and sits down next to Holly in her highchair, in his mother’s usual spot. Behind him, he can hear Nancy moving around the kitchen, and then a bowl of the stew that had been simmering in the Crock-Pot is placed in front of him.

Nancy sits heavily in the chair on Holly’s other side, the one that usually went unused. He figures this is now dinner, even if they’re at the wrong table and sitting in the wrong seats with half their family missing.

Time kinda runs together again. His dad joins them at the table first, then his mom, but Mike never shows. He finishes his stew. Nancy gets up from her seat and pulls Holly from her chair, holding out her hand to Richie in such a way that indicates he doesn’t have a choice about it. The three of them go upstairs, and Nancy pushes him in the direction of his room.

“I’m putting Holly to bed,” she says, voice surprisingly steady. “You should try to get some sleep.”

Again, Richie doesn’t argue or whine or protest, even though he’s pretty sure it’s not even seven yet. He goes to his room, sits down at his desk, and pulls a textbook out of his backpack. He does his math homework, then finishes the reading assignment he’d started at Bill’s. It’s almost nine, now, and still no sign of Mike.

He goes downstairs. As he passes her room, he thinks hears Nancy crying. He wonders if Barb’s dead too.

Even though he’d intended on sneaking straight down into the basement, when he hears Will’s name coming from the TV, his feet keep going, following the sound until he’s standing in the doorway of the living room. His parents are sitting on the couch with their hands clasped, and their eyes are glued to the TV.

“Guys?” he croaks.

His mom looks toward him, and Richie can see her eyes are red, face drawn and worried. “Oh, Richard,” she says, reaching toward him with her free hand. “Come here.”

Richie sits down on her other side, and she pulls him close to her. His dad reaches over to pat his knee. He watches the man on the TV talk about Will, about how he’d died. They think he must have gotten spooked by something on his way home, something to make him abandon his bike and run half a mile in the dark until he reached the quarry, where he must have just… toppled right over the edge.

Even though Georgie hasn’t officially been found yet and technically might still be alive, Richie's dad had sat him down two Saturdays ago and told him that Georgie had probably drowned too—that he’d probably hit his head hard enough to knock him out and the storm had just swept him away. He'd said that they’d probably never find the body, that Georgie had by now probably found his way out to sea.

 _At least Will’s family knows for sure,_  Richie thinks, leaning heavily into his mother’s side. _I guess there’s that._

Right at nine-thirty, his mom sends him back upstairs—when it comes to bedtime, she has an internal clock. “Leave Mike alone for now, okay?” she tells him as he stands to go. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t stay up all night.”

Up in his room, Richie sits down on the edge of Mike’s bed. He’ll wait up for him, he decides. They could talk, if Mike wanted to, or not talk. If talking was good, Richie might get a chance to apologize for not jumping in to find Will. If talking wasn’t, well, Richie didn’t mind just sitting.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he must have, because the next thing he knows, he’s sitting straight up as if pulled by a string, and his head feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton. Mike’s standing in the doorway, blinking at him.

“Sorry,” his brother says, stepping farther into the room and closing the door behind him. “I thought—go back to sleep, Richie. I’ll sleep in the top bunk.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Richie says, scrubbing quickly at his eyes. He swallows. “I was waiting for you. I… I thought maybe you would want to talk.”

Mike looks down at him for way too long, a distantly thoughtful expression on his face. It’s the same way his brother had looked at him in the garage, only the morning before.

Will had already been dead.

He can’t believe Will’s been dead since Sunday.

“Mike?” Richie says when his brother never answers; his voice is weak, even to his own ears. “I’m—”

“Don’t be sorry,” Mike interrupts. “It’s not your fault. You had nothing to do with it.”

“I know, but—”

“Will’s your friend too. He doesn’t want you to be sorry.” Mike’s brow is furrowed; he’s looking at him hard now, like this is all a test and he’s just begging Richie to get the right answer.

Richie’s usually good at tests, but right now his brain’s too scrambled to _just fucking concentrate already._  All he can think about how Will wasn’t his friend, or actually really it was _him_ who wasn’t Will’s friend, not anymore, because they never talked or played together or even just rode bikes, and when push came to shove and Will went missing, Richie was too scared to get off his ass and do something about it. “Mike,” he says faintly. “Please.”

Mike’s expression beings to close; he can see it happen almost in slow motion. “It’s gonna be okay, Richie,” his brother says finally, his voice stupidly gentle and impossibly assured. “I promise.”

He sits down beside him then, and puts a hand on Richie’s shoulder. Richie swallows back the urge to throw his arms around him; Mike doesn’t always like to be hugged, and he can sense that this is one of those times. It’d be more for himself than his brother, anyway.

“If something was wrong,” Richie begins carefully, trying hard to keep his voice from wavering, “you know that I would help you, right? You don’t have to worry. I can take care of it.”

Mike flinches, a freaked out expression flashing across his face, and Richie’s suddenly certain he’d said the wrong thing _again._  He opens his mouth to fix it, but for once in his life he can’t word vomit quickly enough. Mike beats him to it.

“Richie,” his brother says, features schooled back into neutrality. “Let’s just go to bed, okay?”

 _No,_  Richie wants to yell. _I don’t want to go to sleep. I just want you to fucking talk to me._

But Mike’s already standing up and hunting for some pajamas. So Richie does the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! The original second half of this chapter just needs a little cleaning up and should be up by tomorrow. It talks a little bit about the history between Mike, Richie, Stan, Will, and Lucas. You can find the "extended history" on my blog: babygoestozspace.tumblr.com
> 
> EDIT: Headcanons/background posted: http://babygoestozspace.tumblr.com/post/172746297575/some-background-for-my-stit-twin-au-friendships


	3. Chapter 3

In the morning, Mike doesn’t spring out of bed when their alarm starts blaring like he usually does. Richie climbs down from his bunk and shuts it off as quickly as he can, grabbing his glasses in the process. Then he leans over his brother’s bed, peering down at him. 

“You can shower first, if you want,” he says finally.

Mike gives him a look, a fleeting trace of his usual exasperation flitting across his face. Then it’s gone and he’s closing his eyes, burrowing back under the covers.

Richie gets ready quickly and hurries to get downstairs. He doesn’t know what he’d been expecting when he gets to the kitchen though; breakfast is somber, would be dead silent if not for Holly being unusually fussy. His mom makes blueberry pancakes, everyone’s favorite, but no one seems to really notice. Next to him, Mike’s chair is conspicuously empty, and on its other side, Nancy hasn’t touched a thing; she just sits there staring down at her plate with her brow furrowed, like she doesn’t even really see it.

“Honey, you really should eat something.” Richie looks up at his mother’s voice, but she’s just talking to Nancy. Nancy looks startled.

“Right,” she says faintly, and reaches for her fork and knife. “Sorry.”

His mom just gives her a gentle smile before standing. “I’m just gonna go check on Mike,” she says. “I’ll be ready to take you to school in a few minutes, okay?”

Nancy nods. Richie pushes back his chair and scampers after his mother, but stops short in his doorway while his mom continues the rest of the way into the room. He watches them speak quietly, and notices vaguely that Mike has his blankets pulled all the way up to his chin.

“I think I just want to stay home today,” he hears Mike whisper. “If that’s okay?”

Their mom goes silent for a moment; Richie’s almost impressed at his brother’s boldness. “Well, are you sure you’ll be okay here by yourself?” she says finally, and glances over her shoulder. “Maybe if Richie wants to...”

Something in Mike’s expression changes. Richie forces a smile and says, “It’s okay, Mom. I should go. I, uh, only came to get my backpack, anyway.”

“Are you sure, honey? I’d really feel better if—-”

“Stan’s probably waiting,” he says quickly. He takes a step back. “I’ll see you guys later. Bye, Mike.”

“Wait,  _ Richard—” _

Richie turns and… well, he doesn’t  _ flee, _ exactly. But he does hurry down the stairs and skid through the house with the express purpose of avoiding the rest of that sentence, so sure, maybe he was running away. Sometimes his mom knew exactly what to say to get him to crack, and he just couldn’t take that risk.

He  _ does _ have enough sense to grab his jacket himself before leaving the house, though, and is still wrestling it on when he walks right into Stan Uris. Like, right into.

Stan drops his bike and yelps, “Sorry!” Richie just squints.

“What are you doing in my garage?”

“Sorry,” Stan says again. “I wasn’t sure if you were coming.”  _ I got worried _ hangs in the air. 

“Got held up.” Richie hauls Stan’s bike upright before mounting his own. “Come on, then, we’re gonna be late.”

“Is Mike…?”

“Nah.” As they ride past the Sinclair residence, Richie notices Lucas’s bike still leaned against the side of the house. “My mom tried to wrangle me into staying with him, but I think he just wants to be left alone.”

“My mom didn’t want me to leave either. But...”

“But?”

Stan doesn’t answer and Richie doesn’t bother pushing it. Their neighborhood goes by in a blur, before they’re riding into town. He and Stan usually left a few minutes earlier than Mike, and Bill and Eddie live in the opposite direction, so it’s always just the two of them in the mornings. Still, it suddenly feels… weirdly lonely.

“I just—it’s so weird to think,” Stan says abruptly, breaking the suffocating silence, “that I just saw him only… two days ago, I guess it was. I didn’t even say hi.”

Talking about their dead sort-of-friend hardly seems better, but Richie will take it. “Me neither.”

“You ever miss it?” Stan asks quietly. “Being friends, I mean.”

Richie looks at him out of the corner of his eye. “Do you?”

Stan just shrugs. 

“Stan, come on. We just grew apart. It happens to everyone.”

“I know.”

“We started fighting all the time… around third grade. Remember that?”

Stan half-laughs. “We could never agree on what to do. Lucas and Mike would always get mad at you for not sticking to their stories when we played outside—”

“Hey, you didn’t always play by the rules either.”

“—and remember Will? Sometimes he’d try to, like, be a go-between—”

“—but we all knew where he really wanted to be.” Richie grins, even as he wipes his eyes. “Jeez, dude.”

“I think we could have stayed friends.” Stan’s voice is so quiet Richie has to strain to hear him.“If we’d tried harder.”

Richie opens his mouth to deflect, but all that comes out is a sigh. “Yeah,” he says eventually. “Probably.”

When they get to school, Bill and Eddie are waiting for them at their lockers. Bill’s pale and a little scattered looking. Eddie’s face is pinched with concern.

“Sorry we’re late,” Richie says for both of them, and hikes the straps of his backpack farther up on his shoulders. He’d forgotten to pack it this morning, so there’s not really anything to offload. Stan carefully moves past him to his own locker though, and Bill rotates slightly to stand closer to him.

“It’s fine, we weren’t even waiting that long,” Eddie says, which is a bold-faced lie, because he’s an even bigger stickler for time than Stan is. “Are, uh…?”

“Yeah, Eddie Spaghetti.” Richie speaks for both of them again, smiling crookedly and clapping Stan on the back. “We’re alright. Save it for Mike, okay? He’s not here today, but I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”

Eddie blinks uncertainly, but nods nonetheless. "Well, okay. But tell me— _ us, _  if you need anything, because we’re—”

The bell for homeroom rings and Eddie instantly changes gears. “Oh, fuck,” he swears. “Uh, I heard there was going to be an assembly for Will during fourth period? Not that we won’t see you before them, but just in case. Bill, come on. See you later!” 

They hurry off—or rather, Eddie hurries as quickly as he can weighed down by a shuffling Bill. Richie goes to trot after them, but Stan suddenly grabs his sleeve, yanking him back. 

“I just wanted to be with you guys,” Stan says, all in a rush. “That’s why I came. Even if Will… you guys aren’t. Not yet.”

For a second, all Richie can do is blink at him, because wow, way to be morbid. Then, he feels a smile break out across his face. “Hey,” he says, reaching out to hook an arm around his neck. “We’re not going anywhere, okay?”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, but I decided it.” Richie squeezes him tighter; not tight enough to hurt, of course, but he hopes the added pressure tells Stan all the feelings he doesn’t have the words for. “Ya can even ask ol’ Billy and Eds. We ah naht goin’  _ anywhere, _ Stan Man. Capisce?”

The old mob voice must do the trick, because Stan smiles. Even if it’s tiny, it’s enough.

* * *

 

Eddie's right. Instead of fourth period, they tell everyone to go straight to the gym. The four of them are among the first inside, and Richie insists they sit up high, so they can see everything and where the general chatter won’t bug them too much, even if they have to listen a little more carefully.

Bill had barely spoken more than a dozen words so far, but as the gym starts to really fill up, he suddenly says, “Th-they d-d-d-d-id one of th-th-these f-f-f-for Juh-Georgie, tuh-too. At- the el-el-ele—” His mouth twists in frustration. “His sch-school.”

Richie, squeezed next to Bill on the bleachers, first looks to Stan and Eddie before he speaks. “Well,” he says slowly, “it’s cool if you want to go. We’ll come with you.”

_ “No,” _ Bill says forcefully. “I juh-just w-w-w-wanted you guh-guys to know.”

For the assembly, Principal Coleman starts with a bunch of stuff that everyone must already know by now; Will going missing, his body in the quarry, etc. He talks a little about how bright Will was and the hole he’ll leave in the student body. In general, it’s all very expected.

What Richie hadn’t expected though, for his brother to waltz right in while Principal Coleman is talking about grief counselors, flanked by Dustin, Lucas, and a blonde girl in a pink dress that Richie doesn’t recognize.

“I thought your brother wasn’t coming to school today,” Eddie whispers.

“That’s what I thought too.” Richie watches Mike reach for the girl’s hand, helping her up the bleachers while Dustin corrals her from behind. They all look weirdly comfortable together, like they’ve been friends for a while, but that doesn’t seem possible because Richie has never seen that girl before in his life. “Hey, you know who that girl is?”

Eddie shakes his head. Riche nudges Bill’s thigh, waves to to get Stan’s attention. “Have either of you ever seen that girl before? The one with my brother?” They both shrug and Richie leans back against the wall, frowning. He knows this shouldn’t bug him so much—she looks like any other girl at school, Mike had probably just seen her crying over Will and taken her under his wing, because that’s just the kind of person he is. But he can’t shake the feeling that, somehow, she doesn’t belong.

He has a hard time concentrating for the rest of the assembly, and as soon as Principal Coleman dismisses them, Richie’s trying to fight his way down the bleachers. He hears Eddie call for him to wait and ignores him, knowing keeping track of three other people in this crowd would just make this harder.

In hindsight, sitting in the farthest possible seats from the door had been a mistake, because now he’s at the mercy of his classmates, who generally move with as much urgency and direction as a herd of sheep. He can’t even plow right through like he normally would, because he has very little experience on these bleachers and doesn’t trust himself not to go tumbling down with a single misstep.

Then the crowd stagnates, and the typical chattering din of a middle school gymnasium softens. Something’s happening and vaguely, Richie thinks he can hear his brother’s voice. A gasp works through the crowd, then a ripple of laughter, and seriously, can  _ everybody _ see what’s going on but him?

“Hey!” Principal Coleman shouts just as Richie manages to break through the crowd. “What’s going on over there?”

“Mike!” Richie lunges in the direction of his brother, but he’s still too far away and Lucas reaches him first. The two run off, Dustin and the mystery girl hot on their heels. Richie goes to chase them, but in the next instant, Stan and Eddie are flanking him, Bill looming behind them. “What the fuck, let me go!”

“Rich, we gotta go,” Eddie says firmly, tugging on his arm. “Look.”

Richie finally tears his eyes away from the gym doors to look in the direction Eddie’s pointing. Right there, in the middle of the quickly emptying gym, is Troy Harris standing in a puddle, a huge wet spot on his crotch. It kind of looks like— 

“He p-p-p-pissed him-suh-self,” Bill says, sounding vaguely in awe. “Let’s guh-go.”

“Wait, but Mike—”

“Look, we only have fourth period for twenty minutes.” Stan’s voice is as soothing at it can ever get, and Eddie, even though he’s so short, puts a protective arm around Richie. “Then it’ll be lunchtime, and you can talk to Mike. Okay?”

Richie doesn’t say anything, but he lets them guide him out of the gym and drag him to class anyway, because he knows he’ll worry them otherwise. He can’t stop thinking about his brother and that mystery girl. He doesn’t know why it’s bugging him so much.

Something's wrong.

Mike doesn't show up to lunch. Richie, bitterly disappointed but trying not to show it, only half listens to his friends’ half-hearted conversation as he pushes colorless spaghetti around his tray. He really wants to do another loop around the room just in case he’d managed to miss him, but some teacher he didn’t know had caught him during his third round and forced him back into his seat, warning him not to get up without reason again.

“Richie!”

_ “What?”  _ Stan’s looking at him impatiently, which tells Richie that probably wasn’t the first time he’d called his name. “What is it?”

“Here.” Stan reaches his closed fist across the table. “Do you mind going through the line again and buying me some milk? I forgot to earlier.”

“Why? You have two feet,” Richie says without thinking, but Stan just gives him an insistent look and it dawns on him. Going through the line again is a perfectly acceptable reason to get up. “Oh. I mean. Whatever you wish, your Highness.”

Stan rolls his eyes but drops the change into his palm. Richie grins and jumps out of his seat.

Of course, his fourth round comes up empty. As he moves aimlessly through the lunch line, Richie starts to wonder if Mike really had left the building. He doesn’t know how his brother would have known about Will’s assembly if he hadn’t already been at school, so he must have shown up for some other reason. He thinks about how Mr. Clarke had escorted that little foursome to the gym. Maybe he would know where Mike was now?

Clutching Stan’s milk, Richie looks around for their science teacher, and as he does, he notices Beverly Marsh walking past, her bright red ponytail like a beacon. He remembers, suddenly, seeing that same red ponytail earlier during the assembly. She’d been sitting directly behind Mike, which means… 

“Hey.” Without giving it another thought, Richie reaches out to grab her wrist. She whirls around. “Did you see what happened in the gym?”

Beverly’s frowns slightly. She’s only a little taller than he is, but still she peers down at him like that inch may as well be half a foot. “See what? Your twin shoving Troy Harris hard enough to make him piss himself?”

Whatever Richie had been expecting, it hadn’t been that. For a second, he’s too stunned to even speak. Then,  _ “What?” _

Beverly shrugs, and before he can demand an explanation, the fire alarm begins to wail.

* * *

 

“Go, go, go, go, go!” Mike cries, pulling El’s cart along while Lucas pushes and Dustin brings up the rear, shielding them from prying eyes. “This way! Come on!”

If Mike’s right, even though it’s not exactly a straight shot, the way they’re heading should take them out one of the back doors where the dumpsters are, far away from any prying eyes. They just had to get out of the school without catching the attention of any teachers (because carting along a limp girl bleeding from the face was sure to raise some questions), but if they could manage that, they’d be home free.

“Mike?” a familiar voice shouts behind them.

_ Shit. _

Lucas and Dustin both slow, looking to Mike as if for guidance, but he pushes them forward. “No, go! Take her to the dumpsters, I’ll meet you there. Let me take care of him.”

_ “Mike!” _

Lucas, Dustin, and El disappear around the next corner just as Richie catches Mike’s wrist and yanks him back. “What the fuck, dude?”

Mike says the first thing that comes to mind. “Uh, sorry I didn’t sit with you?”

“What?” Richie gives him a weird look. “Listen, Bev Marsh told me you picked a fight with Troy after the assembly,” he says, not letting go of Mike’s wrist. “Is that true? What the hell are you doing here anyway, you never got out of bed this morning!”

Mike can’t help himself. “Since when were you friends with Beverly Marsh?”

Richie’s expression twists further. “Mike, what are you doing here?” he asks, finally dropping his hand. “Why the hell would you try to fight  _ Troy _ of all people?”

“He was being a jerk, Richie. He was laughing at Will.” Richie frowns and Mike adds, “You would have done the same thing.”

That doesn’t move Richie like he’d expected. Instead, he looks even more distressed. “Who  _ cares _ what I would have done? You’re not me.” He shoves his glasses up his nose, and Mike realizes with a start that he’s blinking back tears. “You’re  _scaring_ me, Mike. I’ve hardly seen you in two days, but now we know Will’s dead and he’s been dead this whole time and you—you won’t—you’re just— _ fuck." _  Richie’s voice breaks off and he sniffs, hard.

“Hey,” Mike says. He reaches for his brother but never makes contact, his hand hovering in the space between them. “Don’t cr—it’s okay, Richie.”

“No, Mike, it’s  _ not _ okay,” Richie snaps, and his voice is kind of brittle, kind of shrill. “Will is  _ dead _ . He’s not missing, he’s dead. And now you’re acting weird and picking fights and locking doors and spending all your time in the basement, like, even more than usual, and I—I  _ know _ you’re hiding something from me and I’ve tried—I’ve tried  _ really hard _ to not bug you too much but now you’re really  _ freaking me out  _ and I just want to know what’s going on.”

The fire alarm is still shrieking above their heads, but the building is otherwise still and silent. Richie roughly drags his fist across his eyes, knocking his glasses askew. Before he can lose the nerve, Mike steps forward and hugs him.

Richie stiffens at first, and for a second Mike worries that he’d misjudged the situation. He almost pulls away, but then his brother’s hugging him back tightly, so tight that in the back of his mind Mike starts to wonder how long he’d been waiting for this.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” he says after a moment, breathing in Richie’s familiar smell of laundry detergent and hair that’s probably due for a wash. “I’m okay.”

“Shut up,” Richie says harshly, and he sounds like he might really be crying now. His forehead is pressed against Mike’s shoulder. “Your best friend died.”

“Will’s your friend too.”

“Stop  _ saying _ that. I was a terrible fucking friend.”

“Maybe,” Mike agrees slowly, because Richie has a point; he and Will hadn’t really been friends for years. “But… maybe you could still fix it. Be a better friend, I mean.”

Richie pulls back; despite the tear tracks, he doesn’t look upset anymore, just tired. For a moment, all he does is stare at him, and to Mike it’s almost like… it’s almost like he’s finally starting to figure something out.

“Mike,” Richie says in a voice that is very, very careful, “what are you talking about?”

Suddenly, Mike wants nothing more than to tell his brother everything, from finding El in the woods that first night to making contact with Will just a few minutes before. He’s tired of keeping secrets and he’s sick of Richie being mad at him.

But before he can even figure out how to start, Richie’s talking again, his hands suddenly clutching Mike’s elbows. “Will’s not coming back,” his brother says, sounding very gentle and looking very concerned. “Are you talking about praying?”

Maybe he could just bring Richie outside right now, that would be enough proof, right? He could introduce Richie to El, and— 

“Mike, don’t be mad at me, okay? But I really think you should talk to an adult.”

Mike comes crashing back to earth. And just like that that, he realizes that nothing he can say or do will make Richie get it. Richie would dig his heels in about telling an adult even worse than Lucas had, because Richie has decided that Will is dead and nothing can bring him back anyway.

The bad men would come to take El away, and leave bullet holes in the rest of them.

Mike  _ can’t _ let that happen.

Richie’s still looking at him. Mike gently extracts himself from his brother’s grip. “I think…” he begins carefully, then takes a deep breath. “I think I just need my friends right now, Richie.”

Richie’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. His expression shifts from concern to surprise to hurt before he manages to force his face into neutrality. “Oh,” he says. His voice is small, and he clears his throat, squaring his shoulders. “Okay. I understand.”

“Don’t be mad. I just—”

“Space,” Richie says stiffly. “Like I said, I get it.”

The fire alarm has finally given up, though the air still smells a little smoky. Richie, even though he’s clearly trying hard not to, looks so upset that Mike almost wants to take it all back.

But, he reminds himself, it’s safer this way.

“Well!” Richie’s voice is suddenly cheerful, but Mike knows it’s forced. “We better get our asses out of here before we get lifelong detention sentences for deliberately running away during a fire drill. Come on!”

“Actually, I—”

“Right! You’re not supposed to be here.” Richie shrugs. “I guess I’ll see you at home.”

“You will,” Mike says, scrambling for any way to make Richie feel better. “I promise.”

Richie's attempt at a smile looks more like a grimace than anything, and Mike can't help but think he'd made a mistake.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out this post on my blog: http://babygoestozspace.tumblr.com/post/172746297575/some-background-for-my-stit-twin-au-friendships

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This work should have about four parts total, and then I'll get right to posting the IT piece!
> 
> Feel free to direct any questions to my tumblr, babygoestozspace.tumblr.com! I'll be posting some headcanons and other little stuff that doesn't quite fit into the fic over there in the next couple of days, probably.


End file.
